Question

A child has 2 pencil and 3 erasers. In how many ways he can take a pencil and an eraser?

(a) 5

(b) 6

(c) 8

(d) 9

This question was addressed to me by my school principal while I was bunking the class.

This is a very interesting question from Fundamental Principle of Counting topic in section Permutations and Combinations of Mathematics – Class 11

Answer 1

The correct choice is (b) 6

To explain I would say: By the fundamental principle of counting, if an event can occur in ‘m’ different ways, following which another event can occur in ‘n’ different ways, then the total numbers of occurrence of the events in the given order is m*n.

So, if pencil can be taken in 2 ways and eraser can be taken in 3 ways then number of ways in which he can take a pencil and eraser are 2*3 = 6.